A Columbia woman has been charged with multiple counts of fraud by the Columbia Police Department after stealing the identity of a client she was doing taxes for through tax services business.
Tracey Honeycutt Jefferson, 53, charged May 13 with two felony counts of fraud: obtaining thing of value by false identification and felony bad check violation.
Det. Micheal Turner with the CPD said the case was initially reported to patrol last year but was not immediately referred to investigators. When Det. David Thompson, who specializes in financial crimes, started looking through old cases, he started investigating this particular incident.
“She was doing taxes for people and taking the identity of people she was doing taxes for,” Turner said.
Det. Thompson said Jefferson used at-home tax kits to file taxes for people and used that information to register items in the victim’s name and open two lines of credit.
“The more I dug, the more I found out,” Thompson said. “(The victim) got a bill in the mail for Hughes Net satellite internet service and just spiraled out of control from there. There were two credit cards taken out in (the victim’s) name and a few more attempted credit cards. It’s been a little more than a year-long investigation.”
Thompson added that while only one victim has come forward at this point, there could be more victims.
Jefferson’s total bond was set at $16,959.79, and she bonded out prior to press time Tuesday.
